international waters on the black sea when a russian jet dumped fuel on them and bumped into the drone? i mean, it sounds incredibly dangerous. yeah, it really is, laura. and it s good to be with you tonight. and where this happened is probably about in this area right here. so, all of this is international waters that you see right here, just off the crimean coast. and of course, the southern coast of ukraine. so, this area is one in which the united states of course has a lot of interest in trying to figure what s going on. and one of the reasons to fly an aircraft like the mq-9 reaper is to make sure we understand what the russians are, doing what the ukrainians are doing. and what other people might be doing in the black sea right here. so, if this collision is concern confirmed, as your talk, about this would be the first real collision between the u.s. forces and the russians in this conflict. is this possibly risking escalation? i could. and one of the things to keep in
U.S. and Russian officials had conflicting views of the collision between the MQ-9 Reaper drone and the Russian Su-27 fighter jet each blaming the other.
of the down drone, u.s. officials say the russians arrived at the scene first, about 60 miles southwest of the crimean peninsula. but getting to it will be a challenge. probably about maybe 4000-5000 feet of water so any recovery operation is very difficult at that depth by anyone. reporter: officials say the russians will probably be able to collect some pieces of the unmanned mq-9 reaper but the drone software was wiped to ensure nothing valuable was collected. we are quite confident whatever was of value is no longer of value. reporter: the u.s. has no presence in the black sheets but chairman of the joint chiefs ofs allies could help with recovery. former acting director of the ta of michael morell says the russians might not glean much. but they sought to recover it. simple he see there s anything they can learn from it about the u.s. capabilities, possibly defeating those capabilities, or something that they can bring into their own arsenal. reporter: the russians cla